Edaniel's Busy Day
by Evadne
Summary: With Vincent injured, Edaniel has a very busy day ahead of him. Written as part of M. Alice's fanfiction challenge.
1. Breakfast of the Damned

(Author's Note: I may be one of the first people able to say this, but this is written with complete permission from the author. I do not, however, have permission from the publisher, so, Bizenghast belongs to M. Alice LeGrow and TokyoPop. This was started as a contest entry, so anything that seems really weird is probably a result of that. It helps to have read Bizenghast, but hopefully it will be funny and entertaining anyway.)

Edaniel's Busy Day  
**Chapter One: Breakfast of the Damned**

The house did not belong in a nightmare. It was a simple colonial lounging easily on a natural lawn in box-like simplicity. White pine clapboard aged to an ugly Cape Codder brown. An intricate and lovingly made stonewall; wrought-iron handrails hardly necessary for the two stone steps leading to a bright orange door. A charming hand painted sign hanging over said door, advertising, "Agatha Carver's Simplicity Inn. Home of the Breakfast Special."

"This is too easy," said Vincent. "Where are the two-headed fish monsters trying to bait us on ten foot stainless steel hooks? Where are the overly complicated riddles? Why is there a ghost serving breakfast?"

"Quit asking questions, Virgil" replied Edaniel. "Be grateful you're getting breakfast at all."

Dinah, not wanting to jinx their small group or get involved in a Vincent-Edaniel insult/non-sequitur-fest, wisely stayed silent and knocked on the bright orange door. With an undignified squeak, the door opened to reveal a tiny, middle-aged ghost with a rather ridiculous hat. The hat was small, round, green and covered in an oyster-colored gauze. Planted in the center of the hat were two stuffed birds of an indeterminate species and a collection of green sprouts that might have been plants in their owner's previous life. The hat, combined with the ghost's graying brown hair and short stature, made the former woman look like a gnome.

"Hullo," said the ghost woman. "Welcome to my inn, travelers! I'd be happy to show you into the front room. I have a nice fire going, and then I can make you some breakfast!"

"Oh," said Dinah, taken aback by the ghost's enthusiasm and lack of attempts to kill her, "we don't really need breakfast--"

"Nonsense!" cried the ghost, looking slightly affronted. "I insist you let me make you my famous Breakfast Special! Now, please, please, step inside." The ghost attempted to take Vincent's overcoat as she hustled the young woman, young man and green, pointy cat-thing into the house. "May I ask your names?" The ghost continued to chat them up as she led them through the foyer and a narrow hallway to the front room.

Edaniel took up the question. "I'm Edaniel, sister. And this is Princess Zita, ruler of Bahita," he said, gesturing to Dinah. "Oh, and that's some guy." Edaniel waved his paw in Vincent's general direction.

"Ooh, royalty! I've never had royalty in my home before. I'm honored to meet you, Your Highness," squeaked the ghost with a little curtsey.

"Likewise, I'm sure," said Dinah, giving Edaniel a bewildered look.

"Oh, my! Royalty!" continued the ghost, unaware of Dinah's reservations. "I shall bring out my finest tea set. You do drink tea in the exotic land of Bahita, don't you? Oh, you must tell me all about your fair land! I have never left Bizenghast myself. It must be utterly wonderful to travel the world and sample all the foreign breakfasts. But I am content, you know. I love my cozy inn, and it gives me plenty of time to experiment with muffins and teas and spreads, and that's how my famous Breakfast Special came to be. Would you like some?"

"Um," said Dinah.

"You better believe it," said Edaniel.

The ghost clapped her hands joyfully, and practically skipped through the doorway into the front room. "Please, please have a seat at the table. I'll just duck into the kitchen and whip Your Highness up the most delectable petit déjeuner you have ever tasted!" And with a laugh and a suspicious gust of cold wind, the ghost had vanished.

Vincent shook his head. "A breakfast obsessed ghost. How exactly are we supposed to put her to rest?"

"Maybe she died cooking breakfast," suggested Edaniel. "An overcooked hardboiled egg exploded in her face and - "

"The yoke was on her?" finished Vincent.

"Vladimir, there is no way I would make joke that pathetic," responded Edaniel, deeply offended. "Not without provocation, anyway." 

Dinah didn't answer Vincent's question, but wandered around the front room, touching the white-painted oak table and chairs. The furniture was sturdy and very heavy looking, but to contrast the apparent functionality of the set, small yellow tea roses had been painted onto the backs of the chairs and at the table's corners. On the walls hung faded sepia portraits of people steadfastedly refusing to smile. A dark maple bookcase was almost completely devoid of books, but was home to numerous spiders that had spun webs between crumbling volumes. The curtains were pale muslin, but frayed at the edges and drooping into the empty flowerbox out the open window. Dinah supposed that at some point, the room might have been charming, but now it depressed her. Much like everything else in Creation. 

Before Dinah could impart what would surely be a comment to bring the room down, the cold wind returned, dancing around the hem of Dinah's dress. The ghost appeared at a sideboard near the table, carrying a large tarnished tea tray holding a tea pot, four china cups and saucers, tiny pastries and sandwiches, what appeared to be bagels, and a dish of bright orange spread. The ghost had also managed to change her hat while out of sight. She now wore a brimless round cap covered with purple netting and crowned with fanning feathers of white, orange and gray. She no longer resembled a gnome as much as a colorblind peacock.

"Sit, sit!" she cried, seeing them all still lollygagging about. As they did so, the ghost dropped in a deep curtsey to Dinah. "Your Majesty, I am pleased to present you with my favorite dish from my humble kitchen. I prepared it from the finest ingredients available from the tropics. It is my hope that your appetite will be sated by my culinary labors, and that you will ask for seconds." And with that, the ghost rose, brought over a plate carrying a toasted bagel and a shallow dish filled with a bright orange substance. She set both before Dinah and stepped back a respectable distance to observe. Dinah eyed the Day-Glo orange spread warily. She might have been able to eat it were it not for the large brown chunks suspended in the viscous mass. 

"Maybe it's lox?" asked Dinah of her companions is a low, hopeful voice.

Edaniel took a deep sniff. "That's about as fishy as a talking green cat."

"That's pretty fishy to me," replied Vincent, raising an eyebrow at Edaniel.

"Do I look like a fish to you, Vern? What kind of weird parallel universe are you from?"

Dinah looked mournfully at Vincent. "Maybe I should decline?" she whispered.

"Maybe she'll get mad if you do?" replied an equally clueless Vincent, who was not really equipped for food related conflicts. "Maybe I should taste test it?" 

"Eat it! Eat it! Eat it!" chanted Edaniel. 

Vincent glared at Edaniel, and addressed the ghost. "Madam, I don't mean to insult you or anything, but Her Majesty is a very important personage. As such, she is not allowed to dine without proper testing. That is to say, I need to sample your dishes before allowing Di- Her Highness to eat."

"Oh, no," said the ghost, "I understand completely. I'm sure Bahita has many enemies that wish to usurp Her Esteemedship's throne." 

"Yeah," said Edaniel. "Like those darn Fajitaians."

"Pray continue," said the ghost. "I have nothing but concern for the safety of your Queen." 

Vincent, the brave soul, took up the butter knife and hacked out a considerable portion of the orange and brown-chunked spread. With heroic determination, he spread the goop over the now-cold toast bagel. With noble self-sacrifice, he took a large bite of the mystery stuff.

And promptly spat it back out.

For a split second, there was absolute silence throughout the room. But once the moment lingered into awkward discomfort, Dinah ventured, "Vincent? Are you all right? What was it?"

"Chocolate chip mango," whispered Vincent with wide eyes.

All eyes slid to the ghost, who was mysteriously silent at Vincent's rude behavior. Her lips were trembling and a chill wind was running about the floorboards, but she seemed to be attempting to maintain a polite exterior. "Was something not to your liking?" she asked in a firmly controlled voice.

Sensing he was about to venture into perilous, dead-teenage-boy territory, Vincent attempted to mask his disgust with her obviously much beloved spread. "Oh, no, no. I just...don't like bagels is all."

The ghost stalked across the floor and placed her hands on the table. "YOU DON'T LIKE BAGELS?" She pressed her hands hard against the table until it cracked, and then shattered beneath her hands.

Edaniel sighed deeply. "Nice job, Vittorio. Way to be."

"I didn't mean to offend her!" said Vincent defensively. It was difficult to appreciate this sentiment, however, as a sudden wind was sweeping through the front room to swirl malignantly around Agatha Carver, The Breakfast Ghost. The air, which had been growing increasingly frigid as the conversation progressed, suddenly turned as hot and dry as a wind sweeping off an arid desert. The wind crashed about the room, ripping down the curtains, flinging the books from the shelves into the photographs on the walls, and lifting the ghost straight off the ground. Her peacock hat flew off her head, and Dinah had to duck to avoid being smacked in the face by tackily dyed feathers.

"You don't like the bagels!" shouted the ghost. "I made those bagels from scratch! The very wheat used to make those bagels was grown on my property."

"It's not your bagels!" attempted Vincent. "It's all bagels! Bagels in general! Bagels as a genre! Besides, you can't know about bagels! It's not your time period!"

"YOU DISPARAGE MY BAGEL KNOWLEDGE!" roared the ghost, the wind rising to an incredible pitch. Dinah screamed as the windows blew out, sending shattered glass swirling around the room.

Realizing he wouldn't be able to talk the ghost down, Vincent turned to Dinah and shouted, "Run!" But Dinah was frozen in horror as, in the next moment, the ghost's deadly hot air wrapped around Vincent and tossed him straight to the ceiling. With a loud crack, Vincent's head left a large dent in the ceiling, causing small white flakes to chip off and join the flotsam and jetsam churning about the room.

Dinah screamed again, and Edaniel ran halfway up a wall. "Death by chocolate chip mango!" he shouted. "Gooey, chunky, fruity, chocolately DEATH! We're gonna die! Wait, no. I'm already dead. You're gonna die!" 

"You're all the same!" shouted the ghost. "You have no imagination! No appreciation for creativity! You want the same bacon and eggs breakfast every morning! Muffins with blueberries in them! BLUEBERRIES! How passé! You've driven me to the shadows with your narrow-minded cookery! I WON'T LET YOU DENY ME THE ONE JOY OF MY LIFE!"

"Well," said Edaniel. "I think we found out what her problem was."

Vincent was half-heartedly fighting the ghost wind's grip on him, but was still dazed from getting his head knocked on the ceiling. Dinah was in a state of panic. She had to make the ghost let go of Vincent, but how? What could distract her from her rage?

A sudden burst of inspiration caused Dinah to dive across the floor, narrowly avoid being struck by a flying crockery set, and grab up the bagel with chocolate chip mango spread that Vincent had dropped when he'd been hurled to the ceiling. Her stockings tore as she scrambled toward the enraged ghost, swallowing her fear, and preparing to swallow far worse. Her mind went blank as she stood between the ghost and Vincent, held aloft the bagel to get the ghost's attention, and then took a large bite. "Mmm!" she shouted. "Delicious!" 

The wind didn't stop or cool down, but the ghost looked slightly less angry. "Really?" she asked.

"Um, yes," said Dinah. "The fruity flavor complements the bitter chocolate and grainy texture of the bagel." Dinah sincerely hoped this was a compliment.

"I thought so too!" cried the ghost. The wind started to die down, but Vincent remained pinned to the ceiling.

"I would like to order a vat of this concoction," said Dinah slowly. "For, um, all the people of Bahita to enjoy."

The ghost drifted down to the ground, the wind slowly cooled and ebbed away, and Dinah tried not to jump as books, furniture and tea accessories clattered and shattered to the ground all around her. Vincent was still held aloft though, much to Dinah's relief.

The ghost bit her lip and looked all around her. "You like it, Your Majesty? Truly? I...I've never had anyone actually enjoy eating my special-made delicacies before." 

Dinah responded by taking another bite.

The ghost began to smile. "I'm so happy! I've never been so-" And with a brilliant flash of light and a sound like a thousand whisks beating eggs, the ghost rose heavenward and promptly disappeared. Unfortunately, without the ghost present to bear him up, Vincent crashed to the debris-covered ground.

"VINCENT!" shrieked Dinah. She watched helplessly as Vincent hit the floor with a heavy thud.

Vincent rolled to his back to immediately assure Dinah he wasn't dead so she would stop screaming. He already had a tremendous headache. "It's okay, it's okay. I'm all right! My arm landed on a broken teacup, and it's cut. But, I'm all right, I swear."

"Holy Batsammiches, Vincent!" cried Edaniel, leaping over to study Vincent's right arm, which was sporting a nasty gash. "That looks pretty serious."

"It hurts all right, but I don't think it's a mortal wound or anything," replied Vincent, rolling gingerly to his left elbow and pushing off the ground. "Might be broken too. And, hey! You got my name right!"

Edaniel shrugged. "Had to happen eventually. There are only so many 'V' names."

"C'mon, let's get out of here before some ghost shows up to make us lunch," said Vincent, cradling his arm and wobbly getting to his feet.

"How do we get out?" asked Dinah. "Usually when the ghost leaves we just disapp-"


	2. Everything's Better With Edaniel

Edaniel's Busy Day  
**Chapter Two: Everything's Better With Edaniel**

Dinah arrived alone at the Sunken Mausoleum the next night. Vincent had tried to convince her that he was able to come, but his arm had, in fact, been broken. And though it was possible that it wouldn't be a detriment, a broken arm was not something one wanted when avoiding murderous ghosts with death traps demonstrating exactly how long they'd had to think them up.

Edainel greeted her in the graveyard, wearing a pith helmet with little cutouts for his ears and an army green backpack. "Captain Oblivious not coming tonight? That's all right; the Great Green Hunter is at your side."

Dinah was not necessarily reassured.

Nor was she sure how to begin. Vincent usually chose the vault they would open that night, and she had no idea what criteria he used to determine which was next. (It was the one that was the closest, but Dinah thought it was more complicated than that.)

To her left was a gravestone featuring a large statue of a hooded woman offering up at eye level what appeared to be a massive knot of stone cords. Peering into the statue's hood, found the statue had no eyes, just soft depressions where eyes should have been. Yet, differently colored veins in the marble seemed to suggest the eyeless statue was crying. Dinah backed away, slightly creeped out, and decided to focus on the knot instead.

It wasn't as if she had any way of untying it. Even though both ends of the cord were visible on the left and right sides, it was still made of unyielding stone. Dinah gently touched the knot, wondering if she could remove it from the statue's hands. Instead, the knot split directly down the middle and fell apart in symmetrical halves. Behind the statue, a trapdoor opened, revealing nothing but empty darkness. Dinah blinked in surprise. "That was easier than I expected," she said, ill at ease.

"Wow," said Edaniel. "Another hole in the ground. Obviously we are dealing with the cream of the undead crop. So, who are we going after tonight, anyway?"

Dinah read off the gravestone:

CAINE

_I lost my child, my love, my life,  
And by my own folly, I am bound,  
To struggle with she who called herself sister,-_

"The last line is missing," said Dinah. "It looks like it was worn away."

"And that's why we don't allow grave rubbings in the Mausoleum!" said Edaniel. "You think you're getting a memento, but all you're doing is damning a ghost for all eternity! Don't worry, Dinah. Sure those poems are frequently clues to the ghost's cause of death, and not knowing pertinent information can lead to an early and horrible demise-"

"I'm sure we will be fine," Dinah interrupted, more to convince herself than anything else. She carefully peered into the darkness. A ladder appeared out of the gloom, inviting Dinah in and down. Sweeping up the hem of her dress, Dinah turned around and mounted the ladder.

"It'll be wicky splenda!" cried Edaniel, putting on his Wicky Splenda Top Hat and doing his Wicky Splenda Waltz at the top of the ladder.

"Edaniel," said Dinah, looking up at him as she picked her way down the ladder, "I have a hard enough time understanding you when you don't make up words."

Edaniel, with amazing dexterity, leapt from rung to rung after Dinah, chattering all the while. "I do not make up words," he said. "Well, I do, on occasion. Being a Tower Guard is not all spooky speeches and information dispensing. It's also centuries of _The Price is Right_ and using the pages of my brother's dull philosophy books to make paper airplanes, jets and helicopters. And a zeppelin, but that didn't work out too well. Anyway, while I may develop a new word once in a while, I did not make up those. Unless I did and just forgot. Which is entirely possible. And why are we stopping?"

"The ladder ends here," said Dinah, looking down to see only more empty darkness.

"That's shoddy workmanship," said Edaniel. "This ghost should fire his sub-contractor."

"What do we do?"

"Jump!" suggested Edaniel. Dinah gave him a look that plainly said, "Are you kidding me?", even if she didn't vocalize this thought.

"Well, what else are we going to do?" asked Edaniel. "Wait for the elevator? You know, it doesn't matter how often you push the button; it isn't going to show up any faster."

Dinah began to doubt that she had solved the knot puzzle properly. What if this wasn't the right entrance to the vault? Maybe they should climb back up and she could fiddle with the knot a little more.

Throughout her musings, she did not notice Edaniel bunching up his hind legs in preparation for a leap. She did notice however, when he jumped over her head, and disappeared into the darkness with a "SITTING BULL!" A long "WHEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" that grew gradually softer and then faded out all together followed his shout.

"Edaniel!" shouted Dinah after him. She was at the crux of a dilemma. Did she follow Edaniel into the nothingness, or did she abandon him and try to find another way down? Steeling her nerve, Dinah forced herself to let go of the ladder and followed Edaniel's lead.

She hit ground about two seconds later, her knees aching from the jolt of landing.

"You should bend your knees more," advised Edaniel, who was standing a little ways off.

"I thought it would be further," said Dinah. "I heard your shout and thought-"

"Nah," said Edaniel. "I was just messin' with you."

Dinah took a look around her. She and Edaniel were standing at the edge of a groove of skeleton trees a short distance from a gently sloping hill. The grass was brown, but hard grown long. It didn't appear that anyone had come this way for a while. At the top of the hill was a large manor house surrounded by a high wrought iron fence. From the back of the house, a single turret loomed, almost like a castle keep.

"Another ghost in a crumbling mansion. There must have been a lot of mansions in Bizenghast at one time," mused Dinah.

"I'll let you in on a little secret," said Edaniel, leaning in conspiratorially. "They're _actually all the same house_."

"Really?"

"No, I just totally made that up."

Dinah spared Edaniel a troubled glance as she hurried toward the fence. She felt exposed at the bottom of the hill, but was afraid that the gate would be locked. She needn't have worried. The gate, though high and imposing, had rusted so severely that she could push it down with little effort.

There was a wide gravel path border by scraggly bushes leading to the front entrance of the mansion. As Dinah and Edaniel crept toward the house, Dinah could swear she could hear someone scrapping the gravel behind her. But every time she turned to look, there was no one there. Not surprising, as they were dealing with ghosts, after all, but unnerving nonetheless. Dinah was severely agitated by the time she reached the door, not sure whether there was someone else there, or if she was just imagining it all. Just as she was about to try the knob, something flurried behind her, and she turned with a gasp. Behind her was a disheveled ghost woman with her hands clasped in front of her as if beseeching.

"Are you the doctors?" the ghost asked.

"Doctors?"

"To see my sister," supplied the ghost.

"Well," said Edaniel. "I'm _a_ doctor. Don't know if I'm _the_ doctor."

Despite coming from a green, cat-like monster, this appeared to satisfy the ghost, who quickly grabbed Dinah's hand. "Please, come inside. I'll explain everything."

Dinah shivered at the cold touch of the ghost. Though tangible, the ghost's flesh seemed to shift around Dinah's hand like the skin of an overripe peach over the fruit. Dinah wanted to pull away, but allowed herself to be led into the house. She was anxious to learn what had happened so she could leave and get back to Vincent as soon as possible.

Once in the foyer, the ghost slammed the doors shut, and leaned against them, pressing her forehead to the seam between the doors. "I'm glad you came," said the ghost, not turning around. "I've been ever so worried about Lillian."

Turning around, the ghost pushed stray brown hair that had escaped from her braid behind her ears, and looked firmly at the ground. "My name is Margaret Caine, and my sister has done something…horrible." She whispered the last word and looked up at Dinah with wide eyes.

"What did she do?" asked Dinah, steeling herself for the worst possible tale of murder and betrayal.

The ghost beckoned Dinah to a door off to the side, and opened it slowly. Without stepping into the room, Dinah could see the end of a table and a heavy looking chair, and assumed this was the dining room. Stepping inside, she stifled a cry. Lying on the table were two bodies, one of a man about Margaret's age, the other of a little boy no more than five or six. There was nothing in particular about them that suggested they were dead, but normal people did not take naps on the dining room table.

Margaret nodded wisely, and pulled Dinah out of the dining room. She continued to clutch Dinah's arm, and pushed her face into Dinah's. "She's mad, Doctor. I had to lock her under the tower; else she would have killed me too. I'll take you there after tea."

"Perhaps we should go now," said Dinah, really wanting to avoid yet another meal-related incident with a ghost.

"NO!" shouted Margaret, rounding on Dinah. "Not yet! After tea. After tea, you can see for yourself that my sister is mad."

"I think she's a few constellations short of a complete zodiac herself," said Edaniel in an undertone to Dinah.

The ghost seemed to relax once they were all having tea and sandwiches. She even smiled as she asked Dinah and Edaniel for news from town. Edaniel made up a wild story about wild boars stampeding through the local cathedral, causing the priest to hold an exorcism to drive out the spirit of an angry pig that Dinah found ridiculous, but the ghost seemed to find absolutely fascinating. "I wonder if restless pig spirits are common?" she asked.

"About as common as restless cat spirits," said Dinah.

"Are there many of those?"

"Meow," said Edaniel.

"Oh! You have such a darling kitty, Mrs. Doctor," cried Margaret, as if she had not just spent the past half hour talking to said kitty about boars and priests.

"What?" asked Edaniel, for even he was unsure how to respond to this.

"Kitty want a bag of yarn?" said the ghost of Margaret Caine in a squeaky baby voice, digging through a nearby basket for a satchel of yellow, lavender and light pink yarn. Dinah half expected Edaniel to bite her head off for calling him a kitty, or for talking like she'd just inhaled a whole party's worth of helium balloons, but to her surprise, Edaniel merely took the bag of yarn and hauled it up on his back.

"All right! Bag of yarn!" said Edaniel. "My afghan will soon be finished."

"Now!" said the ghost, rising abruptly from her chair. "Shall we go under the tower?"

"Under?" asked Dinah.


	3. Woo! Plot Twist!

Edaniel's Busy Day  
**Chapter Three: Woo! Plot Twist!**

"So if your sister is kept under the tower, what's actually in the tower?" Dinah asked of the late Margaret Caine as she and Edaniel followed the woman through the winding corridors of the mansion.

"Storage," said Margaret simply. "My great-grandfather tried to use it as a silo, but that plan turned out to be quite impractical. Now we use it to store furniture, paintings and maiden aunts."

Dinah fell silent, wishing to avoid further conversation with this odd woman. She felt as if they had been walking for miles in oppressive silence when Margaret finally paused before a large, nondescript door. "I have to warn you, Doctors. Lillian may be difficult to find."

"Oh no," said Edaniel. "She's entirely in your imagination, isn't she? I'm demanding a raise when I get back. I do not get paid enough for this."

"Hmm? Oh, no. It's just that I didn't want her escaping, so I put her in the Maze."

"You have a maze under the tower?" asked a dumbfounded Dinah.

"No, the tower is in the center of the Maze. It's actually under the house and the surrounding fields."

"And you're not at all worried that the house and land will, you know, collapse into all the empty space, killing all you know and love?" questioned Edaniel.

"The Maze is carefully built to support the house from underneath," said Margaret, as if she couldn't believe Edaniel would think her family so stupid as to build a _structurally unsound_ maze under their house. "Let me show you."

Opening the door, the party discovered a steep stone staircase leading deep into the ground. A short distance down, the stairs met a solid stonewall, and started to curve around it. Dinah assumed this was the tower at the center. When they finally reached the bottom of the stairs, their way was blocked by an iron gate. Unlike the gate to the mansion, this gate looked new and solid. The lock was small and ornate, but the mechanism looked unyielding. The lock was set into a large plate of iron, which had a variety of weird symbols engraved into it. The ghost of Margaret Caine withdrew a key from a pocket in her dress, unlocked the gate and threw it open with an expansive gesture designed to impress her guests.

Unfortunately, there wasn't much to see but the first corner of the Maze.

"Wow," said Edaniel. "A wall."

"My grandfather designed it," said Margaret, with more than a trace of pride.

Dinah tried to think of something gracious to say. "Your grandfather was…" Insane. Deranged. A complete and total loon. "…very creative."

"It runs in the family," concluded Margaret without a trace of modesty.

"Nooooo kidding," said Edaniel.

Closing the gate behind them, the three entered the Maze. "Will we have to search much for your sister?" asked Dinah, anxiously. Like all sensible people, she had no desire to wander aimlessly in a locked maze built in a horrific dimension of the dead.

"All we need to do is take three rights," said Margaret. "That will bring us to the entrance of the room directly under the tower. That's where Lillian mostly stays. Then you may vindicate me in my sister's madness."

Dinah followed the ghost around the first corner, growing more and more apprehensive by the second. Edaniel was right. Margaret, though possibly the saner of the two sisters, was not entirely in her right mind either. Of course, as the poem had stated and the bodies in the dining room illustrated, she had lost both her husband and son to the actions of her crazed sister, so it was understandable that Margaret was a bit off. And maybe saving Margaret from her sister would set her free. But as she was led through moldering corridors, lit only by sputtering torches, Dinah pondered that Margaret being the victim was no guarantee of her being _safe_.

"Lillian?" called Margaret into the Maze. "Lily? It's your dear sister. I have brought the doctors to see you, Lillian. They want to help you get better!"

But there was no answer. No sound at all except Margaret and Dinah's heels and Edaniel's nails clicking on the stone floor. Ghost Margaret led them around the second corner, still calling for her sister to come out. Nervously, Dinah started to hug the wall, trying to keep one of her sides from being exposed.

But as they rounded the third corner, Dinah's field of vision was suddenly filled with a whirlwind of activity. A woman with her matted hair chopped off close to the scalp, wearing a tattered shift and no shoes, flung herself into Dinah, knocking them both into a wall. Dinah, of course, screamed. Though with a face full of madwoman, most people would.

"RUN!" screamed the madwoman, who was presumably the late Lillian Caine. "FLEE! Flee from this place! NOW!"

One did not need to tell Dinah twice. Rolling to her left, Dinah got to her feet and launched herself away from the wall. However, despite her cries to run, the ghost woman scuttled after Dinah, grabbing the hem of her dress, ripping the delicate lace. Dinah screamed again, still trying to escape. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a bright green blur coming up behind Lillian's ghost. Edaniel leapt on the ghost's head, covering her eyes with his paws. "Got your nose!" he shouted.

The ghost woman shrieked and tried to pull Edaniel off her head as Dinah crawled away from the thrashing woman. Edaniel didn't cling too hard, as he only wanted to distract the ghost. With an agile bound, Edaniel landed beside Dinah wearing a ten-gallon cowboy hat, and remarked in a fake drawl, "I think I got a 25, but she only racked up a 10 at most." 

The angered ghost spun toward them, growling. "Lily!" cried Margaret, in a furious tone, her face contorted with rage. The ghost froze and glared at Margaret, then ran off in the opposite direction, somewhere deep in the Maze.

"I am very sorry to have frightened you, Doctor," said Margaret, composing herself as she turned to Dinah and Edaniel. "But you see how she is."

"How…how long has she been that way?" asked Dinah, still pulling herself together.

"Ever since she killed her husband and her son," replied Margaret, a sad look appearing on her face. "Why she did that, I'll never know."

"_Her_ husband and son?" Dinah asked warily, a slow, cold drip of fear sliding down her spine. "I thought they were _your_ husband and son."

"Oh, no, Doctor. I have never been married. Lillian was always the lucky one in love. Makes it all the more tragic, doesn't it? Father was very happy with Robert, yes, and they were blessed with child early. And look at her now. Father wanted me to live in the Tower because no men came, but who's living there now, hmmm?"

Dinah had the sneaking suspicion that she had done something terribly stupid.

"How did she kill them?" asked Dinah as she backed up slowly against the wall. Edaniel was flanking Margaret on her other side, apparently having picked up the same vibe. Margaret was not between them and the gate, but being a ghost probably gave her some advantages. Like not being bound by time or space.

Margaret did not appear to notice Dinah's hesitancy. "Poison. In their fish. Poison in the poisson." Margaret gave a nervous giggle at her own joke. "They still haven't left the dining room, as you saw."

"Lady," started Edaniel, "as much as we enjoy gallows humor and the occasional lame pun, we really should get going. We've got gall bladder surgery at five, and an emergency piscterectomy at eight. Your sister's crazy, you're crazy, this maze is crazy, Dinah here was crazy coming in, and I'm off the rails on the Crazy Train. Consider this our professional diagnosis."

"I'm not crazy," said Margaret, pursing her lips.

"Of course you're not," said Edaniel patronizingly.

"Edaniel," whispered Dinah, "could you not antagonize her?"

"I could," replied Edaniel, "but it would be entirely contradictory to my nature."

"We need to find Lillian!" demanded Margaret. "We need to find her so you can take her away and lock her up!"

"You've already done a fine job of that," said Edaniel. "Maybe we should try a little reversal, huh? You want to spend a little time down here? Cozy mildew covered walls, a few poisonous spiders, an eternity of lonely torment…just like mamma would have wanted for you."

"Be quiet!" shouted Margaret. "She started it!"

Dinah pushed back against the wall, staring in horrified silence as the dead ghost of a murderess and sororicide faced off against her most improbably foe, a talking green cat. "Let me guess," said Edaniel, cocking his head and putting a paw to his very pointy chin. "She was happy and you weren't?"

"I hate her! I hate her! I hate her!" screamed Margaret, scrunching up her face most unattractively. "And I hate you!" And with that she vanished with a shriek like metal twisted into a balloon animal.

"I think I handled that pretty well," said Edaniel, nodding as he turned around to head back to the gate. Dinah merely stared. "What? It's not like we're dead."

However, when they returned to the gate, they realized that Margaret had shut and locked it behind them. And now that they were without Margaret… "Okay," said Edaniel. "So we are locked in an scary labyrinth of doom. But we're not _actually_ dead yet, so that's a point in our favor."

Studying the bars, Dinah realized there was a solution, though it was not one of which she was particularly fond. "You could probably fit through, Edainel."

"What kind of cat monster do you take me for?" asked an offended Edaniel. "I wouldn't leave you alone in a crazy ghost infested maze when there were other options. Now let's have a look at this gate. Check out the crazy symbols on the lock. Bet it's some kind of secret code."

"Do you think so?"

"Yeah, there's always a secret code or mystical puzzle to solve. Ghosts have waaaay too much time on their hands. Hmmm…I think I've seen this writing before."

"You can read that?" asked an amazed Dinah.

"Not only am I a doctor," said Edaniel, "but I also graduated from the Robert Langdon Correspondence School of Symbology. Free secret decoder ring with every degree. Give me a lift up, would ya?"

Dinah picked him up and held him level to the lock. Edaniel placed his paws to either side of the writing and started mumbling under his breath. Dinah waited anxiously. "What does it say, Edaniel?"

"It says…Drink…More…Ovaltine."

"What?"

"I'm just yanking your chain. It's actually the poem from the gravestone. Only this one has the last line. It says, _'In action, not words, can truth be found.'_ Well, I think we can file that under 'Things we needed to know ahead of time.'"

Dinah crumbled to the ground and held her face in her hands. Sure, the dusty floor was ruining her nice dress, but by this time she had learned that any outfit that went on a ghost rescuing expedition was going to return unwearable. As long as she herself returned to make and wear outlandish dresses, it didn't really matter.

"Now what do we do?" asked Dinah through her hands. She really didn't want to break down and cry, but she had made a botch of this entire enterprise. She'd mistaken the tormented ghost for the sister doing the tormenting, allowed herself to be lured into a trap, and now had no idea how to get out of a maze hundreds of feet under the ground.

Edaniel, on the other hand, was not predisposed to brood. "We find this Lillian chick, escape and plot our revenge," he said. "And then get some dinner and maybe catch a late movie on HBO."

"Edaniel, we're in a _maze_. We already chased Lillian away, we're locked in and there's nothing to distinguish one part of the maze from another. We could wander for days."

"Luckily, Ms. Margaret Crazy-Pants has provided us with a solution to one of those problems. My afghan may suffer, but the sacrifice of my bag of yarn will not be in vain."

"Yarn? Yarn is going to save us from dying?"

"Haven't you ever read any mythology?" asked a surprised Edaniel. "A bag of yarn is the answer to all your labyrinth needs. We'll just tie one end to the gate here, and let it trail behind us. We won't accidentally go in circles, and when we've found Lily Caine, we can find our way back to the entrance."

"But how will we get out?"

"We'll cross that bridge when we've burnt it, Dinah. First, I've got to shred this yarn so we'll have more."

To Dinah, it looked more like playing than shredding, what with the way Edaniel lay on his back and tossed balls of yarn into the air, using his claws to rip wound threads apart before batting it back up. Finally, rolling over onto the shredded pile of yarn, Edaniel sighed. "Oh, yeah. That was some good yarn. Let's get going."


	4. Way Too Long

Edaniel's Busy Day

**Chapter Four: Way Too Damn Long**

"We should go back to the tower room first," said Edaniel, as Dinah knelt and tied the string around his neck in a thin, floppy bow. As Dinah leaned back to consider her handiwork, it drooped rather depressingly to the floor. She quickly tied the bow in a double, then triple, knot to keep Edaniel from tripping on the loose loops.

"Thanks," said Edaniel. "Heh. Get me! I'm dapper! I'm debonair! I'm puttin' on the Ritz!"

"Why the tower room?" asked Dinah, standing and dusting off her skirt futilely.

"Always best to check the lair first," replied Edaniel. "Also, she probably hasn't gone too far. Knows we're still in the maze. Might even know we're on her side. C'mon."

It was no better traipsing through the moldering corridors even with the ghost of Margaret gone. If anything it was worse, as Dinah had no idea how things would turn out, and wasn't sure she wanted to either.

"Are Lillian's husband and son ghosts too?" asked Dinah, attempting to use conversation to mask her anxiety. "It would be awful to simply lie on a table for all eternity while your murderer torments your loved one."

"Nah," said Edaniel. "They're just props."

"Props?"

"Yeah, like in a play. Margie and Lills are acting out their angsty melodrama for all eternity, but they can't do that without a couple of dead blokes taking up space on their dining room table. They're just there to fill up narrative space in the sisters' story. Like the candelabra or the stairs or the house itself. Not conscious ghosts. Just objects."

"But you couldn't have a conscious ghost house," said Dinah sensibly.

"So you think," replied Edaniel.

Three rights wasn't a far walk. As they rounded the final corner, Dinah could see the entrance of what could loosely be termed Lillian's home. There was a simple arched entrance in the bottom of the tower, not unlike the entrance to a cave. A rank smell drifted out, wet and sick, like sweat mixed with something sharp and coopery that Dinah recognized, but couldn't quite articulate. The low light from the flickering torches did not extend into the dwelling, making it impossible for her to see if anyone was inside. They would have to approach.

Edaniel trotted forward as if there was nothing to worry about, entering the darkness. "Ewwwwww," he said.

"Is she there?" asked Dinah, not quite ready to brave the unknown.

"Nah, but you should come see this."

Entering the darkness, Dinah waited for her eyes to adjust. When she could finally make out the room she was in, she gasped. The smell was stronger and seemed to mostly come from a dirty pallet in a far back corner (as much as a circular room could have a corner). There was a dark stain right next to it, and Dinah was certain it was not spilt water. There was little else that could be called furniture, only a battered tin cup and a broom handle that was jaggedly broken. Filth and spiders occupied the rest of the circular room. A millipede crawled across the split handle, unaware of the visitors. "How could she live like this?" she wondered, appalled at the conditions in which Lillian Caine had lived and died.

"I doubt she lived very long," said Edainel. "Probably starved or committed suicide or sommat. But never mind how she bought the farm, check out this drawing."

Dinah hadn't noticed before, but over the rancid pallet, about a foot off the ground, was a shaky line drawing daubed on the wall with dark paint. It was hard to make out, being done in dark colors on top of a dark color in a dark room. Dinah knelt down and leaned forward until her nose was almost pressed against the drawing. The lines were all connected and radiated out from a center dot like…

"A maze!" cried Dinah. "It's the Maze! She mapped it out!"

"Good on her," said Edaniel.

"But how did she make it? There's nothing to paint with." Dinah lightly touched the drawing and watched it flake onto her fingers. Rubbing her fingers together, Dinah considered. That smell she couldn't quite identify. It was stronger by the picture. Staring at the dark lines, it suddenly clicked in her head. She threw herself back, stumbling on the pallet. She landed on her rear with her hand in the dark stain. "Oh God!" she gasped. "It's blood!" She skittered backwards like a crab to escape, nearly managed to tangle herself up in the yarn trailing from Edaniel's neck, and huddled against the wall, clutching her wrist.

"Yeah," said Edaniel. "Like I said: 'Ew.'" Padding up to the drawing, Edaniel cocked his head and said, "Huh. I wonder what all these x's are."

Dinah did not respond, as she was still traumatized in the corner. Edaniel glanced at her over his shoulder and sighed. "Do you want me to do a dramatic reading of Shakespeare? Will that make you feel better? I do an excellent Hamlet," he asked.

"NO," replied Dinah emphatically.

"Well, then, help me look at these x's. They're all over the map. I wonder what they mean."

"They are an escape," said a hollow voice from behind them. Twisting around and shrieking in shock, Dinah turned to the entrance to find the rag-doll form of Lillian Caine standing in the entrance behind them. Edaniel strolled over and stood between them.

"Oh, look. You made Dinah scream in horror," said Edaniel. "Not that this is particularly difficult."

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry," whispered Lillian, as she slid back into the maze, away from Dinah and Edaniel. "I didn't mean-"

"It's all right," said Dinah, not exactly meaning it, but wanting to calm down the ghost. She stood and put out her hand in what was presumably a reassuring gesture, but looked more like "Stop! In the name of Love!"

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry," repeated Lily.

"Don't be sorry, woman!" snapped Edaniel. "Be angry! Your sister's a murderous loony! And we're going to help you get yours!"

"What?" asked the ghost.

"You can't spend your whole after life scurrying about a maze with no cheese at the end!" cried Edaniel. "We'll help you get your cheese! Save yourself from your sister and you'll have all the cheese you want! Mountains of cheese! Cheese to the moon! A moon of cheese! Though not green cheese; that's just gross."

"What?" asked the ghost again, clearly discombobulated by Edaniel, as all right- or nearly-right-thinking people are.

"We're here to help," said Dinah.

"Oh," said Lillian. "Thank you?"

"Now, what's this about escape?" asked Edaniel keenly.

Though still visibly unsure, Lillian beckoned Dinah and Edaniel to follow her into the maze proper. Standing at the wall directly across from her lair's entrance, Lily started running her hands over the dusty surface. Dinah boggled for a moment, but all became clear when, with an audible crunch, the wall creaked open like a door. Lillian held it open for a moment, and then, pulling away her hand, let it crash shut.

"Secret passages?" asked an amazed Dinah.

"Sweeeeeeet," said Edaniel.

"My grandmother put them in," said Lillian. "She didn't think an _inescapable_ maze under the house was very genteel."

"Most high society frowns upon inescapable mazes," agreed Edaniel.

"All those x's!" cried Dinah. "Are they all secret passages?"

"Oh, yes," replied the ghost, "it's actually quite impossible to get lost, if you know they're there. There's a passage in just about every section of wall. Sometimes more than one, if it's a support wall. Sections of the wall are on hinges, and when you find the latch, they spring open. You have to hold them open, however, because they'll close automatically." Lillian had become quite animated during the conversation, and Dinah could almost see the bright, lively woman Lillian Caine could have been.

"Yeah," said Edaniel, "this is really educational and all, but it doesn't help us. We already know where the exit is. The problem is more the locked gate."

"Unless there's another exit?" asked Dinah hopefully.

Lillian's energy faded before their eyes. "Not anymore," she said, shoulders slumping. "Margaret collapsed it."

"Well, then," said Edaniel. "There's only one thing to be done: bring down the house."

Dinah and Lillian stared at him. "What?" they asked together. Dinah hadn't believed she would find kinship with a ghost, but Edaniel had a way of bridging minor differences like Life and Death.

"Well, I'd raise the roof, but that doesn't seem like a feasible plan," he continued. "Now, we have to be careful because otherwise we'll all die, and that's counterproductive."

"Edaniel," interrupted Dinah, "how are we going to collapse the house? I'm still stuck on that point."

"We're going to open all the secret passages, of course. You heard Margaret earlier. This Maze here supports the house. We open up all the passages, the load-bearing walls can no longer bear loads, and presto-changeo, the whole thing comes down like a house of mortar and bricks, which is like a house of cards, only much, much heavier."

"Won't we be trapped down here?" asked Dinah.

"Dinah," said Edaniel, "before the dust even settles, it won't really be an issue for us anymore, capiche?"

And while Dinah did capiche, she was still not exactly thrilled with this plan. Lillian seemed to be seriously considering it, however. "The passages will close if we don't hold them open," she said, "but we can prop them open with debris from the collapsed exit."

"See, now you've got it," said Edaniel. "Why can't you be more like Lily here, Dinah? Perfectly willing to throw yourself face first into the brick wall of danger? Now put your best hat on, grab that yarn, and let's get some rocks."

Lillian had started by leading them through the secret passages, but that plan was quickly nixed when Edaniel's yarn trail kept getting caught in the closing doors ("Why don't we untie it?" "Because it's pretty, woman!"). As he was not particularly fond of choking, Lillian led them the long way around the Maze. She explained that she had had plenty of time to wander around, and no longer needed the map she had drawn on the wall. Dinah studiously pretended she did not know exactly why Lillian had had all this time on her hands. "We used to play here, Margaret and I," chatted Lillian, who seemed to be overcoming her fear of the girl and cat monster. "Our parents encouraged it, telling us we were exploring our rich heritage."

"-of crazy," added Edaniel sotto voce to Dinah.

The light, though vaguely morbid, conversation made the time pass quickly as they scurried through the winding turns of the Maze, until Dinah felt as if she had been walking for miles without actually getting anywhere. But Lily plugged along, stopping from time to time to wipe dust off the latches of some of the further away secret passages. "You may need to run," she said cheerfully.

At last they reached a particularly dark cul-de-sac. The roof had been caved in with a large oak whose broken, dead top was still rotting in the Maze. Earth littered with large New England rocks had fallen in after the tree, blocking any passage out. Lillian told them they were far from the house; they had walked down the hill to the edge of the forest at which Dinah and Edaniel had appeared. "I don't think I can carry enough rocks back to hold open all those doors," said Dinah worriedly.

"I have the bag from my bag of yarn," said Edaniel. "That should help us out. Also, I can eat them."

"Eat them?" asked Dinah.

"Eat them," stated Edaniel matter-of-factly.

"We can use our skirts to carry some, too," said Lillian.

"My dress is already ruined," agreed Dinah, looking down sadly at the filthy tatters her hem had become.

"First of all, Dinah, take this yarn off me," said Edaniel. "We'll leave it on the ground to follow once the house starts collapsing. We won't want to be messing around with secret passages then."

As Dinah filled the bag with rocks, Edaniel went around unhinging his jaw and swallowing a large number of rocks. Lillian and Dinah frequently stopped to watch in undisguised horror as Edaniel ate the rocks like a snake would a mouse. "Stop that," he said. "You're making me nervous and putting me off my lunch."

Hurrying back to the part of the Maze under the house, Lillian picked out a number of doors they could prop open first without crashing the mansion down on their heads all at once. Opening all these doors was sweaty work and Dinah wondered how much time they had left until dawn in the real world. It felt like this vault had gone on forever.

When only a few select doors had been left unopened to maintain the structural integrity of the building until the last possible moment, Edaniel then suggested that they practice opening, blocking and rushing to the secret passages. Dinah felt mighty strange running this unusual relay with a ghost and a green cat. Lillian would rush to a secret passage and hit the latch, while Dinah would take a large rock from the bag and force it under and against the open door. Edaniel would run through, open the next door while Lillian pulled out rock. Then Dinah would rush through, unlatch another passage, Edaniel would regurgitate up a stone, and so on.

It was all very bizarre.

Finally, Edaniel pulled out a stopwatch and clapped his paws. "All right, guys. It's time to put this operation into motion. I'll be timing us."

They had mapped out exactly which doors to open in what order to disturb the building above them and hopefully avoid getting killed by the falling house. Dinah had no desire to go out like a bad witch. Steadying herself at the first door, Dinah took a deep breath, found the secret latch and opened the door.

They were off.

It was dizzying work; the moment Dinah finished one task she was off on another. She barely noticed the slight shifting and noises from above her. Her head was too busy spinning as she sped through the Maze, taking rapid directions from Lillian and varied cheerleading from Edaniel.

At last there was a creak too loud to ignore that shuddered through the ceiling, causing Dinah and Lillian to freeze. "There it goes," said Edaniel. "About time. Keep moving, ladies."

The noises from the house above them became increasingly louder as they continued their relay through the Maze's secret passages. As Dinah was wedging a rock into a door held open by Edaniel, a new sound echoed through the Maze. "Lily! What are you doing?" It was Margaret. Lillian shivered, but ignored her sister's wrath and hurried through the door to open the next passage.

"Lily!" called Margaret. It seemed she had entered the Maze to seek out her sister. "You stop this right now, or I'll cut their heads off!" Lily froze and looked around in wide-eyed horror.

While she hesitated in indecision, she and Dinah were thrown to the ground when a part of the house fell into the Maze with a terrific crash far to their left. Margaret, wherever she was, screamed aloud and shouted, "I swear I will, Lily! I'm going upstairs right now!"

Lily gave a low, horrified cry and started to run back toward the entrance. "Robert!" she cried.

"Lillian!" Dinah screamed. "Lillian, come back! You'll be crushed!"

"Let her go," advised Edaniel. "That's what she wants."

Dinah hesitated only a moment to watch Lillian's back disappear around a corner before running after Edaniel. The ground shook directly behind her as the large house collapsed into the Maze, kicking up vast amounts of dust that filled Dinah's eyes. She could no longer see the yarn trail through her tears, but merely followed Edaniel's bright green body skittering around the corners like a sentient Day-Glo skateboard. Her lungs heaved as they tried to breathe in the fine powder all around her, and she stumbled frequently when particularly strong earthquakes rocked the Maze.

Suddenly, from behind her, a bright light cut through the dense dust cloud, causing Dinah to throw her arms over her eyes for protection. The deafening noise faded away, the terrible shaking of the ground ceased, and Dinah found herself and Edaniel sprawled on the floor of the Sunken Mausoleum, alive and safe once more.

"Edaniel!" cried Dinah, pulling herself off the dusty Mausoleum floor. "We're alive! We did it! We saved Lillian!" Overjoyed with the revelation that she was not dead and had survived even without Vincent, Dinah swept Edaniel up into her arms and gave the cat monster a big hug.

"Man," said Edaniel extracting himself from her embrace, "I can't take you anywhere, can I?"


	5. Epilogue

Edaniel's Busy Day

**Epilogue**

It was late afternoon by the time Dinah arrived at Vincent's house because she had stopped off at the junkyard to find Vincent a present. The house looked deserted from the front; not decrepit, but simply not lived in. The windows were whole, but empty; the plants not running wild, but flourishing in their solitude. She assumed that Vincent would not be in his parents' house even if he was injured, and picked her way through the crumbling walls that made up his backyard sanctuary.

Dinah poked her head around a headless, armless, mostly legless statue carefully, as she knew from experience that lack of caution could lead to someone attempting to chop it off. She put the rather heavy present down before calling to her friend. "Vincent? Are you out here? I brought you some Rollos and the steering column from a 1978 Chevy Cavalier."

"Yes, I'm here," replied Vincent. "Behind the topiary rabbit." Vincent had told Dinah that he had won the topiary rabbit in an especially vicious round of breakdance fighting. Dinah doubted very much that this was true, and that ithad beenmerely a failed attempt to make her laugh. On the other had, there was a great deal about Vincent's life outside the Mausoleum that she didn't know. Perhaps he was an excellent breakdance fighter; she had never seen Vincent fail to breakdance. There was very little opportunity for getting funky in ghosts' dreams.

"I hope you're resting," said Dinah, as she came around the rabbit. "Your arm isn't healed yet."

"I am resting," replied Vincent. "See? I'm sitting in this hand-woven hammock I made last summer while my parents were in Prague."

"Edaniel says hello," said Dinah, offering Vincent some Rollos, "and also something about windmills."

Vincent took the proffered bag of caramel-y goodness and frowned. "Is the bit about windmills important?"

"I doubt it," replied Dinah.

"You brought me a steering column?" The Rollos were slightly melted, but no less delicious.

"Yes, but what did you need it for?"

"I'm going to use it as a birdbath bowl. I'll set it into that hollow stone column over there and wrap some plastic tight around the wheel to keep the water from leaking in."

"Couldn't you do that with any bowl?"

"Well, you see, it's an anti-squirrel bird bath. Any bird that lands in it will be too light to set off the horn. But if a squirrel jumps in…"

"Oh. That's clever." Dinah bit her lip and walked in a little circle.

"I don't actually know if it will work. But it's worth trying anyway. Dinah, are you all right?"

"I'm sorry you were hurt, Vincent."

"It was my own fault. I'm the one who turned away from the bagel."

Dinah turned to Vincent with her most serious face. Which was pretty serious, as crazy, orphaned, ghost-saving girls have very little to be slap-happy about. "You don't have to keep coming. Edaniel--"

"Dinah. I'm not going to abandon you now." Vincent reached out with his uninjured arm and took Dinah's hand. "And there is no way I am leaving you alone with Rapmaster E there."

Dinah risked a small smile. "Thank you."

(Author's Note: Thank you all so much for reading! I really appreciated the feedback! I hope this isn't all rendered ridiculous now that the second book is out!)


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